A Landmark for What?

You could say Michelle Gildernew's path into politics began before she was born. Thirty-three years ago, her Catholic family was evicted from the home where they were squatting in protest against discrimination in public housing; they were ousted to make way for a single Protestant teenager. In the outrage that followed, Northern Ireland's civil rights movement began. Its convulsions deepened into the Troubles, three decades of strife that cost 3,500 lives and are still being gingerly laid to rest. But a kind of historical circle was completed late at night on June 8, when the last result of the U.K.'s general...